It’s just business: manufacturing mergers from Stratasys Ltd., Suniva, TDK, and more

The business of manufacturing never stops. Industrial companies merge, invest and strategically expand to keep competitive, even under adverse business conditions. In this edition of our It's Just Business Digest, we've collected five recent mergers and acquisitions in 3D-printing metals, solar panels, RFID chips, and more.

Acquisition: Stratasys Ltd. announced May 27 that it had acquired most of MarkForged for $42.5 million. According to a Stratasys announcement, Nano Dimension, MarkForged’s current owner, will retain ownership of its Metal Binder Jetting product line. The acquisition will add the rest of MarkForged’s additive carbon-fiber manufacturing business to Stratasys’ general additive manufacturing business.

Acquisition: Suniva announced June 8 it would merge with a wholly-owned subsidiary of SUNation, effectively bringing both U.S. solar cell manufacturing companies under the same roof. The combined company will continue to operate under Suniva’s name and maintain SUNation’s publicly-traded status on the Nasdaq exchange. In a statement, SUNation CEO Scott Maskin said the merger would meld his company’s residential and commercial installation strengths to Suniva’s manufacturing operations. Suniva CEO Tony Etnyre said the combination and new access to the stock market would allow the company to “move faster, invest deeper, and expand further into the domestic manufacturing capacity this country urgently needs.”

Acquisition: TDK Corp. announced June 10 it had agreed to purchase Fabric8Labs, Inc., for $800 million in cash. Fabric8Labs, a metal 3D-printing technology company, will become a subsidiary of TDK’s electronic components company. TDK leadership cast the purchase as a way to advance the company’s stake in thermal management projects used in data centers. In a statement, TDK CEO Noboru Saito said the purchase would position the company “to provide customers with innovative thermal management systems, high-efficiency power components, and advanced packaging techniques that define the next generation of data center performance.”

Acquisition: Pursuit Aerospace announced June 9 it had acquired Quebecois aeroengine machining and fabrication company Leesta Industries, Inc. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Pursuit CEO Doug Folsom, in a statement, said the purchase aligns with the company’s growth priorities by expanding its offerings for Pratt & Whitney engine platforms and gives it access to Pursuit’s forging and casting operations.

Acquisition: Unified Information Devices, Inc., a Wisconsin manufacturer of medical RFID monitoring products, announced June 12 it had agreed to purchase German RFID and electronics company AEG Identifikationssystem GmbH, also known as AEG ID. In a joint statement, UID CEO Craig Jordan said AEG ID has a strong reputation for its industrial RFID products in Europe and that the partnership would allow UID to bring those technologies — used in industrial automation, access control, logistics, and other applications — stateside.